Mob Wives – Episode 2 – I’m Dead

You know the saying “There are three sides to every story: yours, mine, and the truth”? On Mob Wives, we’re lucky enough to see the “truth” as it’s captured on camera, but we’re also privy to the re-tellings and everyone’s versions of the events as they saw them, which makes for an interesting experiment. Do our opinions change after we hear the stories of fights re-told, or does it just serve to amp us up all over again and make us mad at the same people?

Last week, we watched the breakdown between Carlaand Renee. Long story short, both women were hearing things that the other had said, and when they sat down for brunch at Big Ang‘s house, with Ang and Drita there to referee, the insults continued to fly, with Renee calling Carla a homewrecking adulterer, and Carla calling Renee a junkie. They eventually agreed to a truce where they would no longer be friends but they could coexist when they absolutely had to, but not before Carla got feisty with a butter knife and started waving it around in Renee’s face. This week it’s all about the re-telling of this tale and what that means for everyone else.

Ramona, Karen, and Karen’s new hair head over to Renee’s house to hang out,
and immediately, Renee tells the girls about the fight. She explains that Carla deflected all the insults thrown her way back onto Renee.
Ramona and Karen aren’t that surprised by Carla’s insults because they don’t really like her anyway, but they’re annoyed that Big Ang and Drita didn’t come to Renee’s defense while it was all going down. (But in their defense, they were mediators who weren’t there to take sides, right?)

“Okay, so let’s just say she’s a putana and you’re a junkie. Where’s the ending in all this?” Ramona asks. And that’s when Renee tells them that Carla pulled the butter knife on her at the end of their conversation. “What did she want to do, get some butter and whip it all over you?” laughs Ramona.
“I would be whipped, she would be spread,” Renee counters.
“She really has some set of balls,” Karen adds.

Drita and Ang also get together to discuss the brunch and explain why they didn’t get involved to defend anyone. “Was Carla not a MANIAC?” Ang asks. “NUTS!” Drita says. “She went f—ing bonkers…I hope Renee’s not mad at me since we didn’t jump in but what was there to jump in about?”
They agree that even though they didn’t get involved, it ended as well as you could hope for, and it hasn’t deterred Ang from wanting to throw a Botox Bash for the girls. “First there’s butter knife fights now, what, are we gonna have needle fights?” Drita asks. And then she does my favorite impression ever, of a woman with a Botoxed face gloating about being in a fight.
“Everyone should be there,” Ang says, hoping her beauty party can unite her friends. “Is that too much to ax?”

In Carla’s world, she’s over Renee, she’s over the butter knife, and she’s moved on to Raquel. Raquel is Joe’s, Carla’s ex-husband, new, younger girlfriend. She was referenced last season, though not by name, and this week we actually get to meet Raquel. Carla doesn’t know what a younger woman wants to do with an older man with two kids and a rap sheet, she assumes she’s “probably a young, sweet little matronly girl. You know, someone to do his laundry, powder his balls.”
When we finally meet Raquel, she and Joe are getting together to play some hoops, and Joe explains the biggest difference between the two, that “Raquel is a conversationalist and Carla is an argument waiting to happen.” Which is exactly why he’s afraid to bring up the fact that he and Raquel are going to move in together.
Raquel understands why Carla might be annoyed by the situation but when she verbalizes it, even though her point is harmless and in fact, a positive thing, it comes out as fighting words. First she implies that Joe is happier with her than she was with Carla, and then, the biggest no-no, she says “When we’re together, me, Joe, and the kids, it’s kinda like we’re a family.”
No mother is psyched to hear the new woman in her kids’ lives imply that, so Raquel, good luck to you.

When Joe does tell Carla his plan to move in, her response: “Does he think I’m gonna go for this? I don’t think so.”
“I don’t want my kids to feel uncomfortable because she’s living in that house now,” Carla says. “I;m still the mother of those kids, you’re the girlfriend. I don’t care where the f— you live.”

Like I said, good luck, Raquel.

Drita also has her own man situation, because Lee gets out of prison in six months and despite serving him divorce papers she’s…not sure how she feels about him. When he gets out, she’s not certain if she plans to take him back or what, because theirs is a love that cannot be separated by metal bars or halfway houses. Ang and Carla think she should be with him, but she needs to figure that one out for herself. But look at how she smiles and glows when he calls her during her lunch with them.
“I still love Lee. 100%. Am I in love with Lee? I don’t know,” she explains. “I’m sure I’ll be able to figure that out real quick.”

When Drita gets back to her lunch with the ladies, they joke that she’s a little gushy over Lee. “She probably has phone sex” Carla jokes, but Drita sets her straight. “I DO! What…Youse DON’T?”
Ang is scandalized.
Lee has asked Drita to visit him in prison with their daughters, and Gizelle, Drita’s youngest, age 5, is not interested. Drita really wants the girls to go see him, but she’s not going to force the issue. Ultimately, Gizelle agrees even though it must be hard to want to go see a man you probably don’t even remember meeting.

Drita’s also on the hunt for a storefront to open up a brick and mortar makeup shop for her new line of Just Me Cosmetics. After hunting all over Staten Island, she casually mentions to Big Ang that she’s looking and, just because Big Ang is THAT kind of friend who knows a guy who knows a girl who’s renting a storefront, she brings Drita to a shop across from the Drunken Monkey and boom, Drita’s found her spot.

Renee’s also on the hunt for real estate this week, but this is like House Hunters: Mob Relocation Edition, because she has so many criteria on the list for her new place, she’s an impossible client to please. Security is of the utmost importance at this point because she’s a little paranoid after her recent break-in, and she’s sizing up windows, doors, basements and garages to make sure there are no nooks or crannies for anyone to hide in. “I am really having a hard time,” she tells Karen, after Karen tries to reassure her that no matter where she lives, she’ll be okay.
Renee wants a home where she’s “so secure on both sides that you’d have to go through walls to come and get me.” I’m…not sure that request has ever been made on House Hunters, so this realtor might have some extra work to do.

And at last, it’s time for the Botox Bash, where Big Ang can get her “Boop boop boop boop!” done.
Karen, Ramona, Renee and Ang are all there, and so is Love in all her glory. You gotta love Love for going all out at this party, especially when she explains “In this day and age, there is no reason to be ugly or old.”
Drita cancels at the last minute because of a toothache, and Carla decides to opt out as well since Drita won’t be there But even though that’s what she SAYS, what the rest of the girls INFER is that Carla actually bailed because she doesn’t want to see Love. “Carla didn’t come because she got a problem with you,” Renee tells Love.

Now, is this legit and the two have a beef, or is it something they just conjured up? At first glance, it sounds like Renee might just be starting something, but it’s worth it just to hear Love ask “Who the f— is Carla? She doesn’t really warrant the sweat underneath my breasts.”
“What IS her problem with you from the get-go? Is it because she dates your ex-boyfriend?” Karen asks Love. A-HA! So maybe that’s the beef. “She dates a guy I broke up with, so I dunno, I guess she doesn’t like me,” Love says. “I don’t have a problem, but if she didn’t want to come because of me, f— you.”

Later, as if Renee’s security hasn’t felt compromised enough these days, she receives a letter at home. A letter in Junior’s handwriting.
“I have chills going up my spine,” Renee says, freaking out. “All I’m thinking is ‘I’m dead.’” Renee calls everyone she knows to calm down and lend an ear in her state of panic but no one picks up, so she decides to bolt. “I need to get the f— out of this house,” she says, running away from home.